Our village gets porta pots from USS and they are changing policy this year because of some developments from last year.

We did the flag down the truck method last year to deal with our pump outs and it was great until about Thursday.

According to the USS driver, the number of RV's doing flag down pumps doubled from 09 to 10 and put a serious wrench in the works for the USS crew that was onsite in being able to keep up with demand.

When I called USS in Reno this year to get pricing, etc for camp potties, I was told that flag down pump outs were no longer going to be available for the event. ALL pump outs/servicing runs would have to be prescheduled and prepaid. If you are not on their daily route sheet, you will not be getting pumped out this year.

For RV folks, I do not know if this means you will have to call USS in Reno to schedule prior to the event or locate the USS office on site to take care of it.

As always, your mileage and experience may vary, just passing on what I heard from USS.

Wow...thanks!
This will be my first time bringing an RV, so thanks to you Cap....my potty won't be so naughty.
My guess, is that they will take requests and payments at their camp near the gate. I will have to look into this as well.

If you're bringing a crowd in your RV...put the toilet OFF LIMITS! Or don't and suffer possible consequences of a backed-up black water tank in two days.

Those of you tuned in to ePlaya are fortunate to have received advance notice of the revised pump out service restriction...I pity the several thousand others who might not have a clue.

Do your RV neighbors a favor when you show up this year...talk to them and make sure they understand the issue afoot...or park far away from them for verily they will become cesspools of filth and stinkiness.

Don't bore your friends with all your troubles. Tell your enemies instead, for they will delight in hearing about them.

Is USS the only service provider? Never had my RV serviced before cause I never stayed the whole week and didn't fill my tanks. This year however I will be there the entire week and I will definately be filling those suckers up. And another question is how often throughout the day do they come by? There again never watched for them cause I didn't need them so I don't know.

United Site Services (USS) will be located at the 6:30 Esplanade. You have to schedule your RV service by 29 July 11. You'll need to know your camp name or where you will be set up so they can locate you. If you are going with just a few friends, are not part of a theme camp and only have one RV, you still make your reservations as normal. When you arrive at B-Man, contact Mindy or Mark at the USS camp and tell them where you are camping. USS direct number is 775-826-5646

RV service is $60.00

I confirmed the info myself and everyone will have to schedule service if you want your tanks emptied. If you don't your gonna be up shit creek litteraly.

So I called USS today to confirm this information and possibly set up my pre-paid RV service.

I spoke to Mindy (nice woman!) who said the info in the OP's post is INCORRECT.

You DO NOT have to pre-schedule your RV service. They WILL be doing flag downs as usual (meaning it's still hard, you have to find a truck and hope it's the right truck, not just a porta-potty sucker dude, etc).

You can also go to their office on the playa which will be open during normal business hours all week (maybe not on weekends, forgot to ask) and schedule with Mindy (she's working) and pay with cash OR credit card right then and there.

Their camp will be there but it isn't at 6:30 and Esplanade (as I interpreted from an earlier post in this thread) or even THE 6:30 Esplanade (which I assume is to mean the last street in our city). She said their camp is out off the grid but inside the trash fence sort of near the road coming in (at 6:30). The way she described it is, "As you come in through Greeters, if you look off to your left and see a big camp out in the middle of nothing, that's us!"

She said that yes, they do love pre-paid services, too, and if you're doing that it does need to be scheduled by July 29, 2011, as previously posted in this thread.

She laughed as I explained where I got this info as she'd received more than the usual amount of calls about scheduling service and had an "ah-HA" moment when I explained to her where I got this information. It was kinda funny! She told me to go ahead and post this info; I asked her to come and do it.

But, no, you still will be able to flag down trucks in the normal Burning Man haphazard fashion if you need a suck or go to the on-playa office and schedule/pay.

The number posted here was correct and she said please feel free to call if there are any questions. (775) 826-5646

mode-of-operation wrote:OK I did the leg work myself and got some of my answers.

United Site Services (USS) will be located at the 6:30 Esplanade. You have to schedule your RV service by 29 July 11. You'll need to know your camp name or where you will be set up so they can locate you. If you are going with just a few friends, are not part of a theme camp and only have one RV, you still make your reservations as normal. When you arrive at B-Man, contact Mindy or Mark at the USS camp and tell them where you are camping. USS direct number is 775-826-5646

RV service is $60.00

I confirmed the info myself and everyone will have to schedule service if you want your tanks emptied. If you don't your gonna be up shit creek litteraly.

Bravo Bravo Bravo!

Thank you very much MO!

Why don't ya stick your head in that hole and find out? ~pieholePlan for the worst, expect the best. Make the most out of it under any conditions. If you cannot do that you will never enjoy yourself. ~CrispyDave

So I called USS today to confirm this information and possibly set up my pre-paid RV service.

I spoke to Mindy (nice woman!) who said the info in the OP's post is INCORRECT.

You DO NOT have to pre-schedule your RV service. They WILL be doing flag downs as usual (meaning it's still hard, you have to find a truck and hope it's the right truck, not just a porta-potty sucker dude, etc).

You can also go to their office on the playa which will be open during normal business hours all week (maybe not on weekends, forgot to ask) and schedule with Mindy (she's working) and pay with cash OR credit card right then and there.

Their camp will be there but it isn't at 6:30 and Esplanade (as I interpreted from an earlier post in this thread) or even THE 6:30 Esplanade (which I assume is to mean the last street in our city). She said their camp is out off the grid but inside the trash fence sort of near the road coming in (at 6:30). The way she described it is, "As you come in through Greeters, if you look off to your left and see a big camp out in the middle of nothing, that's us!"

She said that yes, they do love pre-paid services, too, and if you're doing that it does need to be scheduled by July 29, 2011, as previously posted in this thread.

She laughed as I explained where I got this info as she'd received more than the usual amount of calls about scheduling service and had an "ah-HA" moment when I explained to her where I got this information. It was kinda funny! She told me to go ahead and post this info; I asked her to come and do it.

But, no, you still will be able to flag down trucks in the normal Burning Man haphazard fashion if you need a suck or go to the on-playa office and schedule/pay.

The number posted here was correct and she said please feel free to call if there are any questions. (775) 826-5646

Well, now I'm all confused!
Damn it, this means I'm gonna have to call my self!

Why don't ya stick your head in that hole and find out? ~pieholePlan for the worst, expect the best. Make the most out of it under any conditions. If you cannot do that you will never enjoy yourself. ~CrispyDave

MO's information isn't incorrect. The original poster's information IS incorrect.

Everything MO said is accurate. He doesn't confirm or deny CapSmashy's original post so it's confusing. IF you are pre-scheduling you DO need to have that complete by July 29. However you don't HAVE to pre-schedule as you will, as usual, be able to flag trucks down on the playa or go to their office.

Feel free to call her.

illy dilly wrote:

Minxy wrote:Hey folks,

So I called USS today to confirm this information and possibly set up my pre-paid RV service.

I spoke to Mindy (nice woman!) who said the info in the OP's post is INCORRECT.

You DO NOT have to pre-schedule your RV service. They WILL be doing flag downs as usual (meaning it's still hard, you have to find a truck and hope it's the right truck, not just a porta-potty sucker dude, etc).

You can also go to their office on the playa which will be open during normal business hours all week (maybe not on weekends, forgot to ask) and schedule with Mindy (she's working) and pay with cash OR credit card right then and there.

Their camp will be there but it isn't at 6:30 and Esplanade (as I interpreted from an earlier post in this thread) or even THE 6:30 Esplanade (which I assume is to mean the last street in our city). She said their camp is out off the grid but inside the trash fence sort of near the road coming in (at 6:30). The way she described it is, "As you come in through Greeters, if you look off to your left and see a big camp out in the middle of nothing, that's us!"

She said that yes, they do love pre-paid services, too, and if you're doing that it does need to be scheduled by July 29, 2011, as previously posted in this thread.

She laughed as I explained where I got this info as she'd received more than the usual amount of calls about scheduling service and had an "ah-HA" moment when I explained to her where I got this information. It was kinda funny! She told me to go ahead and post this info; I asked her to come and do it.

But, no, you still will be able to flag down trucks in the normal Burning Man haphazard fashion if you need a suck or go to the on-playa office and schedule/pay.

The number posted here was correct and she said please feel free to call if there are any questions. (775) 826-5646

Well, now I'm all confused! Damn it, this means I'm gonna have to call my self!

Minxy wrote:We've been paying cash for poop suckage for a while now. Not sure when it started!

Yeah, we did that once in 2004 - for grey water. But, as mentioned, the flag-down system was very unreliable. I guess it is nice to know that you can schedule it, but we have since learned to do without, and it is easy to keep it that way once you learn to camp without needing it.

Minxy wrote:We've been paying cash for poop suckage for a while now. Not sure when it started!

Yeah, we did that once in 2004 - for grey water. But, as mentioned, the flag-down system was very unreliable. I guess it is nice to know that you can schedule it, but we have since learned to do without, and it is easy to keep it that way once you learn to camp without needing it.

Yeah, we did flag downs last year for our potty pumps. 4 or 5 of us spent all day Friday and Saturday out and about trying to flag down trucks for service.

I was on the roof of the bus acting as a spotter and my team of poop truck flagging minions would take off as i spotted them.

Minxy wrote:We've been paying cash for poop suckage for a while now. Not sure when it started!

Yeah, we did that once in 2004 - for grey water. But, as mentioned, the flag-down system was very unreliable. I guess it is nice to know that you can schedule it, but we have since learned to do without, and it is easy to keep it that way once you learn to camp without needing it.

Yeah, we did flag downs last year for our potty pumps. 4 or 5 of us spent all day Friday and Saturday out and about trying to flag down trucks for service.

I was on the roof of the bus acting as a spotter and my team of poop truck flagging minions would take off as i spotted them.

So, "Radical Self-Reliance" is actually a joke!

Waaaaah! I need my holding tanks pumped! Waaaaah! I need my water tanks topped off! I'm OK with the Cafe and Arctica...at least some of the proceeds go to good causes.

Don't bore your friends with all your troubles. Tell your enemies instead, for they will delight in hearing about them.

CapSmashy wrote:Yeah, we did flag downs last year for our potty pumps. 4 or 5 of us spent all day Friday and Saturday out and about trying to flag down trucks for service.

I was on the roof of the bus acting as a spotter and my team of poop truck flagging minions would take off as i spotted them.

What do they look like? And what is the typical cost?This will be our second year with an RV. Our first year we pretty much topped off our gray water, our black water was 1/4 full. Ended up putting dish water down the toilet.

We don't deuce in the RV!!!!

Minxy thanks for the update and confusion clarification!

Why don't ya stick your head in that hole and find out? ~pieholePlan for the worst, expect the best. Make the most out of it under any conditions. If you cannot do that you will never enjoy yourself. ~CrispyDave

Is this the part where you get all Burnier Than Thou and proceed to tell us what a hardcore participant you are because you shit in a bucket inside your tent all week and pack it out with you at the end of the event?

illy dilly wrote:What do they look like? And what is the typical cost?This will be our second year with an RV. Our first year we pretty much topped off our gray water, our black water was 1/4 full. Ended up putting dish water down the toilet.

The pump trucks look a lot like the water trucks for a size comparison. The trucks for RV service usually have a saying RV SERVICE or something similar since they have a different hose set up from the regular potty trucks.